Clackamas, OR, 2012

Clackamas mall shooter faced man with concealed weapon:

Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar.

"He was working on his rifle," said Meli.  "He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side."

The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.

"As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said.

Meli took cover inside a nearby store.  He never pulled the trigger.  He stands by that decision.

"I'm not beating myself up cause I didn't shoot him," said Meli.  "I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself."

Georgia Mother Shoots Home Intruder Five Times After Being Cornered in Attic
LOGANVILLE, Ga. —

A woman hiding in her attic with children shot an intruder multiple times before fleeing to safety Friday.

The incident happened at a home on Henderson Ridge Lane in Loganville around 1 p.m. The woman was working in an upstairs office when she spotted a strange man outside a window, according to Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman. He said she took her 9-year-old twins to a crawlspace before the man broke in using a crowbar.

But the man eventually found the family.

"The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at that time he's staring at her, her two children and a .38 revolver," Chapman told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh.

The woman then shot him five times, but he survived, Chapman said.

Hat-Tip: Ace of Spades HQ & The Blaze

Armed Teacher Stops Gunman: 08/30/2010

Gunman killed at Sullivan Central School.

Hat-tip: Ace of Spades HQ

Hollywood Hold-Up Gone Wrong

Homeless man thwarts robbery in Hollywood.

Hasib Kuric, a homeless immigrant from Bosnia, has a deal with the owner of the Exxon station on South State Road 7: Kuric can sleep in a U-Haul truck out back if he keeps watch over the place.

Just before midnight Monday, Kuric tried to do his part and alert the clerk about a pair of masked men he saw outside the store of the Hollywood gas station. But before he could tell the clerk to watch out, one of the would-be robbers began shooting at Kuric in the aisles of the store — and the clerk was firing back from behind the counter with his own gun.

The gunman was killed, shot in the face by clerk Leonard Carr. Kuric, miraculously, was unhurt.

...

Kuric, 46, said he first noticed the two attackers when he was piling up branches by the side of the store. He asked what they were doing, and one man said he had to use the bathroom in the store. Suspicious, Kuric went into the store to try to warn Carr.

“I said ‘Lock the door, call the police, I think you are about to get robbed,’” Kuric recalled Tuesday afternoon.

But as Kuric entered the store, the two attackers followed right behind him. And then one of them started shooting at Kuric amid the soda and water bottles on the store shelves.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/15/3183760/two-robbers-shot-dead-in-hollywood.html#storylink=cpy

Giving A Shout-Out to a Powerful Post

This comes courtesy of In Jennifer's Head, where she muses on the feckless power of Just Paper:

We’ve all spent enough happy afternoons vanquishing paper foes at the range to know that paper doesn’t stop bullets. It doesn’t even alter the course of that ball of lead. All it does is provide us evidence of the shot.  A document to be reviewed in the aftermath.

A restraining order is much the same.  Not only can that piece of paper not stop a bullet, it cannot restrain a person bent on violence. We saw this play out a few days ago in Milwaukee.  That piece of paper required him by law to turn in his firearms, but it’s just paper.

That paper forbade him from contact with his estranged wife, but it’s just paper.

Much like our paper targets, it’s a document to be reviewed in the aftermath. Yet this is where the antis would have us place our faith.  In paper.  In laws. Officers that can only act in response to an act of violence and not in the direct prevention of.

Opening the Archive

To start things off, I'm going to cross-post these thoughts from over at The Cape Cod Ex-Pat.

If It Just Saves One Life...

Then, it's worth it.

So sayeth our Vice President:

Biden talked also about taking responsible action. "As the president said, if you're actions result in only saving one life, they're worth taking. But I'm convinced we can affect the well-being of millions of Americans and take thousands of people out of harm's way if we act responsibly."

Bryan Preston feels that [comments mine]:

By that logic, if it only saves one life, we should ban cars.
If it only saves one life, we should ban peanuts.

If it only saves one life, we should ban sports.
If it only saves one life, we should ban fishing.
If it only saves one life, we should ban alcoholic beverages. [Tried that once before and look what happened.]
If it only saves one life, we should ban hammers.
If it only saves one life, we should ban knives. [Jeez, don't give 'em any more ideas!]

Okay, by their arguments, if it's worth saving just one life, then it's time to remind these folks that in keeping unrestricted Second Amendment rights:

• If just one woman uses a gun to prevent a rape, it's worth it.
• If just one woman uses a gun to protect herself from the violently abusive ex who ignores his restraining order, it's worth it.
• If just one night clerk uses a gun to protect himself from a drug-crazed robber late at night, it's worth it.
• If just one woman uses a gun to protect her children and herself from an intruder, then it's worth it.
• If just one person uses a higher-capacity magazine's worth of bullets to protect him/herself from multiple assailants, it's worth it.